Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee

77 reviews

xeniba's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked revisiting Monty and Felicity, as well as seeing their relationship with Adrian bloom. That being said, this felt like 25% longer than it needed to be. While I greatly appreciate the depiction of mental illness, at times I felt the spiraling went on too long. That’s not to say it’s not realistic (in my experience it absolutely is), but I’m not sure it was necessary to get the point across. Or maybe I found it a bit frustrating because it hit close to home. Overall, it was a nice finish to the series.

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aformeracceleratedreader's review

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes

3.25

Probably my favorite of the 3, but still not my favorite books to read. I generally liked them all, but like the rest this one will be pretty forgettable. I appreciated the discussion on mental health struggles (especially as someone who struggles with mental illnesses) and I appreciate the discussion on grief. A good listen overall but could take it or leave it.

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thelittle_seokmin's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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briannasam's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“And books can be loud, if you know how to listen to them”

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elerireads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

So this portrayal of anxiety made me so anxious I struggled to keep reading it in places, which I suppose means it was very good. I know it can be quite frustrating dealing with the irrational ways a person with anxiety might behave, and I felt this did a pretty good job of showing what's going on in their heads in those moments. [Although I do always find with attempts to write about anxiety and intrusive thoughts that there's an ... over verbalisation? That's probably not the right way to put it but basically anxious thoughts are written out in italics as complete sentences, which is obviously a reasonable representation in some cases but often I think it's taking the easy way out of having to attempt to express the inarticulate mess of half-formed panicky thoughts and feelings that clump together into a big ball of dread. It's not really a fair criticism to level at this book in particular, especially as it's acknowledged at the end that this was based on personal experience and not necessarily intended to be representative, but all the same it does fit into a pattern that's somewhat lacking imagination.] Adrian was a really good main character for this. His life is good by pretty much all "objective" metrics; he's a rich white man, he's physically healthy and able, he's engaged to a woman he loves, he's talented and he's driven by a sense of purpose. And yet, he's scared pretty much every waking second of his life. Although he's managing to function pretty much like everyone else, it takes him so much more effort than it does for most other people, and that's not visible to them at all. Mackenzie Lee deserves a lot of credit for this.

I enjoyed the story and although I don't normally enjoy this kind of borderline fantasy where everything is mostly realistic but there are a few supernatural elements, I quite liked the way the Flying Dutchman was handled. It's sort of real and not real at the same time and it worked well.

I was quite unimpressed with how unpleasant and cruel Monty was at the start - it was completely uncalled for and I thought he was supposed to have mellowed out into a much better person by this point. However, it did allow for a nice story arc of sibling bonding and learning to see past differences to understand that fundamentally they're very similar. I would have liked the mother to feature more heavily as an actual person, given that it's a quest driven by grief for her and she's really the common factor linking the siblings. It's a first person narrative from th PoV of a character supposedly deeply grieving the recent loss of his mother and yet I feel I know nothing about her besides the fact she was also an anxious wreck, and feel no connection to her as a real person.

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